Institutionalized Racism

I want to offer some discussion on this term.  I still marvel at how confident people who use this term are, and how little they can concretely explain not only what it is but also fail to offer concrete evidence for it.

This does not originate from believing it does or does not exist -- as if I believe there is no widespread problem.  This is coming from the frustration that so much energy and resources, and resulting public discourses, are centered around this concept - yet no realistic and concrete statement of the problem with directly corresponding solutions are proffered.  It is almost as if it seems people want to just exercise rhetorically for the social deference or to justify their activity traps.  Regardless, either not knowing concrete features of the problem and solution or simply keeping them secret, deserves stout reproach.

Solid Ground defines Institutionalized Racism as “the systematic distribution of resources, power and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who are white and the exclusion of people of color.” (http://www.solid-ground.org/Programs/Legal/AntiRacism/Documents/ARI_Definitions-Accountability_Standards_ONLINE_7-09.pdf.)

The definition described by Solid Ground echoes its traditional definition and recent definitions used elsewhere.  Is this what people mean today when they wield the term?  If they mean some form of social system that operates within the implicit realms of the human mind, then they use this term incorrectly.  Solid Ground believes the former is the direct cause for the poverty of peoples of color.  A discussion on this will follow in a later post, but for this article, I will focus on the latter misuse of the term.

Many a scientists have studied how birds and animals flock.  They even have an algorithm that when used to move visual objects will say it looks just like what they see when they watch birds or animals flock.  Flocking is the visible results of a primitive social system.  The birds don’t think each moment about whether they will ebb or flow, veer one way or another.  Such is automatic.

Similarly, humans also have a social system with a similar physiological basis - only ours is not only far more complex, but is also connected with our higher cognitive systems - resulting in very complex and seemingly enigmatic emergent features.  Simply put, we elaborate that social system with conceptual constructs that only exist in our minds.  This sometimes goes awry causing numerous individual and ultimately social problems. 

The human social system also operates often automatically.  But we also tend to spin social meaning post-hoc that rings true with our schemata and thus providing justification.  A schema is like an internal database of experiences/memories, beliefs, behavior, response patterns, avoidance/aversion triggers, etc., that combines to emerge our world view, our personality and resulting communications and behavior patterns. 

With this said, it is important to understand that we can operate in flocking mode but we do not do so all the time - our behavior isn’t always simply an extension of our subconscious social brain.  Moreover, it is important to understand other aspects of the human psyche that are obviously ignored by many who wield this term in the incorrect manner they do.  One major aspect is the concept of general and specific attitudes.

Implicit attitudes tend to guide us when exceptions do not exist or our conscious thoughts do not explicitly override them.  This has been evidenced recently with findings in neuroscience.  It is likely that the self-report measures of large-population participation in the Implicit Association Test (IAT - measures implicit attitudes), are accurate in describing the specific attitudes of those participants (self-report measures often conflict with corresponding IAT scores).  Specific attitudes are the exceptions to general/implicit attitudes, and they tend to guide us more in interpersonal interactions based on social norms.

To use institutionalized racism as causation has very little value beyond a social buzzword.  The reality is it is a loaded term and few truly understand what it means.  It would be reasonable to postulate that when it is used, all those who experience its use at that time each hold a significantly different meaning for the term -- and most likely have merely feelings about it, not knowledge constructs.  In fact, such is yet another example of social flocking.

To paraphrase Einstein, we cannot expect different results with the same thinking. Applied to this discussion, it means we cannot address a problematic phenomenon (social flocking) by being driven by that phenomenon.  It is important to understand this social flocking as it relates to our own thinking, activity, and efforts in improving society with regards to racism.  It is important to develop skills in recognizing and ceasing this flocking so to think critically first and in reality never to flock.  The less we flock; the more civil we are.

In the meantime, while rhetoric and accusations fly, the urgency of now is effectively ignored, and the populations of our colored brothers and sisters at work, in our neighborhoods, and in the greater society, still suffer - and a large portion of our society’s human resources go to waste.